Big
Switch Networks, the leading platform-independent Software-Defined
Networking (SDN) vendor, announced that the Board of Directors of the
Open Networking Foundation has appointed Dan Talayco to its Technical
Advisory Group (TAG). Dan’s appointment reinforces Big Switch Networks’
technical leadership in SDN, and underscores the joint commitment
between Big Switch Networks, the ONF, and its member companies to
deliver open, standards-based implementations of SDN and OpenFlow.

"The Technical Advisory Group serves as the Group CTO to the Board
providing high level guidance on all Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
technical issues and defining and recommending the technical scope of
ONF to the Board," said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open
Networking Foundation. “The TAG will help us advance the adoption of SDN
and the OpenFlow protocol, and its members are among our most active and
valuable contributors. We’re delighted to welcome our new members to one
of our most important technical committees."

“Dan Talayco has been a core contributor to OpenFlow since its early
beginnings and was instrumental in the development of the OpenFlow 1.0
standard,” said Guido Appenzeller, CEO and co-founder of Big Switch
Networks. “With this experience he is uniquely qualified to serve on the
ONF's Technical Advisory Group, and it is gratifying to see his
tremendous contributions recognized by the Board of the ONF with this
key appointment."

Dan Talayco is a Senior Architect at Big Switch Networks, where he leads
the architecture efforts to help switching partners design and implement
OpenFlow. Previous to joining Big Switch Networks in September 2010, Dan
was a Research Engineer working on OpenFlow under ONF Co-founder Nick
McKeown and Clean Slate Lab Head Guido Appenzeller at Stanford
University. For over two decades, Dan has held a wide variety of
positions in both the private sector and educational institutions
including Principal Scientist at Broadcom, Director of Software
Development, at Aprius Inc., Assistant Professor at Boston College,
Franklin and Marshall College and Kalamazoo College. Dan has also served
as vice-chair of the ONF’s Hybrid Programmable Forwarding Plane Working
Group. Dan was recognized as the “Unsung
SDN Hero” by SDNCentral for his contributions to advance SDN. He is
the author or co-author of a dozen U.S. patents and has contributed
articles to industry publications. Dan has a B.A., Mathematics, Computer
Science from Kalamazoo College and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from The
University of Michigan.

The TAG is focused on Larger Issues including:

Hardware Independence vs. Vendor Differentiation

Usage of a Reference Implementation

Forwarding Model Architecture

Event Trigger API/Mechanism

Transaction Semantics across Devices

Rules for Hybrid Programming Modes

Rapid Tunnel Configuration and Protocol Usage

Multiple Simultaneous Controllers of the Same Switch

Proxy Controller Considerations

Enhanced Controller Resiliency for some uses

Interworking with Existing Configuration Protocols

ONF Scope (Northbound API, controller-controller)

About Big Switch Networks

Big Switch Networks is the leading platform-independent Software-Defined
Networking (SDN) vendor. The company's highly scalable Open
SDN architecture leverages industry standards and open APIs that enable
customers to deploy dynamic and flexible networking applications,
including data center network virtualization. Big Switch Networks is
backed by the largest SDN ecosystem of OpenFlow applications and
physical and hypervisor switches. The company’s commercial controller,
network virtualization, and applications, which accelerate delivery of
cloud services, are in customer trials today. Big Switch Networks was
founded in 2010 by Guido Appenzeller and Kyle Forster. For more
information, visit: